ACCESSING EXTRAS: FONT BOOK (MAC)

Operating system: Mac, Sequoia 15.1.1

Date tested: 08 January 2025 / Missy Meyer

Cost: Free (pre-installed on Mac OS systems)

Font file types to use: TTF, OTF

How to Access Glyphs in Font Book

First, make sure that the font is installed on your computer or device. Check the “Install fonts on a Mac” guide for more information.

Font Book is not a design program; it’s a supplemental program that lets you choose alternates, ligatures, and other extra characters that may not be easily accessible through your design program. If your design program has built-in access to those extras, you’ll most likely want to use that method.

Open up your search panel (accessible by using the Cmd+SpaceBar shortcut, or by clicking on the magnifying glass in your top menu bar) and type in “Font Book”, two words, without the quotation marks.

In the list of programs at the top, click on Font Book. (For a lot of folks there will be no other search results, but you may have something else show up, depending on what programs are installed on your computer.)

This will open up the Font Book menu. Scroll down in the list of fonts until you find the one you’d like to use.  Double-click on the square icon for that font.

Now you’ll see more details of the font. If the characters are a bit too small, there’s a slider bar up here at the top; move it to the right to make the grid larger.

Be aware that with single and double stroke fonts, they may disappear from view at certain larger grid sizes. If that happens, just shrink the grid back down to get the characters to reappear.

In order to get to the ligatures, alternates, and extras in a font, you’ll want to view the Repertoire.  In the Sequoia version of Font Book, the Repertoire area is just below the simple preview. 

In older versions of Font Book, you may need to click on a button to switch into Repertoire Mode.

Here’s an image of an older version of Font Book, courtesy the Apple Support site. You can get to Repertoire Mode by clicking on this little two-by-two grid icon at the top when you’re looking at your font.

Back to the current version…

Any non-standard characters that a font designer has coded in will be down at the bottom of the grid, so you’ll want to scroll way the heck down.  Here I’m at the very bottom of Spicy Sketcher’s character list.

Find the alternate character, multi-letter ligature, or other bonus glyph you’d like to use in your design program. Single-click on the character, and this additional box will pop up.  Click on the “Copy” button at the bottom of that box to copy the character to your clipboard.

Now you can go back to your design program and paste that character in to your design, either using the Paste option from that program’s menu, or the Cmd+V shortcut.

If this program has been updated since this test and this guide no longer works, please drop me a line at the contact form so I can update this page!